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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567686">Latin Studies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bela013/pseuds/bela013'>bela013</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:28:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,138</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567686</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bela013/pseuds/bela013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A direct follow up to 'Not Everyone Can Speak Latin' and once more, just a collection of drabbles about the Courier and Joshua Graham.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Courier/Joshua Graham</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Medical treatment, for someone in constant pain, someone like himself, is more than  just a good thing. Being able to sleep on his stomach for the first time in months. Or moving his neck in whichever way he wanted. Or just being able to go a day without wanting to lie on the ground and let the geckos eat him. Maria was a good doctor.</p><p>"When I joined the NCR, there was some sort of turf war going on against a raider gang that found an old Enclave stash" her hands are careful in the way she peels his bandages. She doesn't look away when she finds open sores in his skin. She doesn't even blink. "Laser burns are permanent. They cut through the thickest armor and mark you much like a cigarette burn does, but bigger. Plasma is different. One minute you're handing an ammo clip to your squad mate, the next, they're nothing but a foul smelling goo by your side"</p><p>"Tough" he isn't mocking her. Maria looks at him funny after that, but doesn't appear angry. It took him months to learn that's the closest she gets to actually smiling while she's working. Joshua Graham is an emotionally stunted man, and he thinks that's exceptional bedside manners from her.</p><p>Her hair was carefully tied into a bun, some of her thick curls spill out off the bun. Her grey hair refused to be tamed, and those were the ones that always sticked up. Joshua wondered if it was proper to stare at her with as much intensity as he tended to while she examined his burns. She has yet to complain. But his eyes tended to wander. He found himself staring at her mouth more than once.</p><p>He had conflicting notions about Maria. To the eyes and ears of New Canaan, she was his wife. To himself, he loved her, and made no qualms about hiding it from her. In his mind, he was hers. He had kissed her before, he had catered to her desire and wishes before. But when he looked at her while she tended to him, he wanted things he shouldn't want. He wanted her to kiss him. She wanted her to be tender, to touch his face and kiss him as if he belonged to her. He wanted her to <em> want </em> him.</p><p>"Joshua?", she must have said something that needed his input. He couldn't quite concentrate on that. Something burned around his face. It was not shame. It was like something was about to burst out, but he wasn't sure if that would tear his body apart. He didn't know what it was.</p><p>Her warm hands the side of his face that she placed a bandage. His skin prickle at something. The skin around his eyes sting, and he takes a long breath. His breathing stutters. He looks at Maria and he sees unshead tears around her eyes.</p><p>"What's wrong?" He asks her, and what he gets in response is a watery laugh. She tips forward and touches her nose to his burnt and deformed one. His eyes burn now. He doesn't think he is crying. Maybe he isn't able to do it anymore. Maria's tears were plentiful enough for the both of them.</p><p>She pecked at his lips, and pulled back to look at him. There was an emotion he could not name in her eyes. He liked the way she looked at him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She had a slow morning. She kissed Joshua right above his ear, and laughed as he twisted away from her. He was oddly ticklish. He waves her away, but not before pressing a mug of something into her hands, this weird tea that was quite common in New Canaan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a five minute walk between their home and the building she used as a doctor's office. Outside their home, she turns to Joshua's kitchen garden, and sees Rex lying underneath the tato plants. She bites back a cough, not wanting to wake up the dog, and loudly sips on her cup while she walks into town.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her clinic was on top of the general store, and the old lady that tended the shop, tips her hat for her and goes back to her book. In days such as this, she almost forgets she got married to a legionnaire and then he brought her home with him. The people in New Canaan had the uncanny ability to look normal. It made her feel oddly safe, to be surrounded by people who so easily go to war. It meant job security for a field doctor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The one thing that could sour her mood, was the other old lady that was waiting for her already inside the clinic. It was like this every day. The same woman would show up, stare at her for a couple of minutes, ask about </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> health of all things, and leave. She wouldn't mind what was clearly a lonely woman, vying for attention, if it wasn't for the way she would look at her, or how she would occasionally ask about Joshua.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Good morning, doctor" there was a harshness to her tone, but Maria was used to it. She had a searching look, and no malice on her face. It was just the combination of a raspy voice that spoke of a life of smoking, and a complete lack of social tact.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Good morning to you as well, Mrs. Bonnie.", the older woman's face twitched into a half smile. It was a rather impersonal greeting. She had been given the permission to call her by her first name, since the other didn't offer a last one, but she still put some distance between them by attaching a honorific to it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That wasn't so different from her life before the NCR. She was the apprentice to the tribe's doctor, so she met many women who did exactly that. Lonely women, that craved attention from someone that could be their children, but were quite stunted into their social interactions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't forget to stop for lunch, doctor" on her way out, the woman smiles at her, an honest to god smile. Maria catches herself smiling back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was welcome into New Canaan, but it wasn't a warm welcome. She was the presumed wife to the person they considered a blemish to their history. She was welcomed as a doctor, and tolerated as a person. It felt good to be smiled to, even if it was by such a weird lady.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I swear I'm going somewhere. I'm just getting distracted by sidequests, like in a fallout game.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"I think you should use less bandages" she speaks loud and clear. Joshua doesn't even look away from his task of stitching a tear on her shirt. "You wash your bandages for reusing. Those aren't sterile. And you don't need them as you used to"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The radio is turned on, and there is a soft tune playing. Still, she turns it as low as possible. She prepared for this conversation for weeks now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I feared infection when you first let me examine you. But we have come a long way, and excluding some small parts of your thighs and upper arms, you don't need the bandages anymore" she stays near him, and watches as he finishes his stitching. He had been able to load and reload weapons, when she met him, but those were strenuous tasks, painful to even look at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't think I'm ready" with a low voice, he acknowledges her points for the first time. It isn't an outright denial.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your skin is skill sensitive and it will feel weird against the texture of your clothes, but I think you can slowly work up to removing all of the bandages" he lays down the shirt, needle and thread, before looking up at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"They burn everyday. Everytime you remove the bandages for cleaning, I burn all over again" she marveled at this side of him. This crushingly honest side. It was almost as if he actually thought of her as his wife. His actual wife.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Scar tissue is a delicate thing. It's new skin. It feels everything up to eleven. Even after years of having that scar." she places her hand on top of his, and tries to ignore the recurrent worry she has of how cold his extremities are.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I had scars before, Maria. I know how they work. And this isn't it"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Maybe…" the words that almost tumble off her mouth threaten to choke her. She took a deep breath and tried to think of him being honest, and how she could trust him with her secrets. "Maybe your scars are like mine. It's more than scar tissue that makes them what they are, there is feeling too." Joshua looks up at her, his milky blue eyes burned against her skin. "One of my scars is a little over 30 years old, and it feels as fresh as it did, when I got it." His eyes made a path on her skin, from the burn on her arm, from a laser gun, and at her hand, where a gecko almost bit off half of her fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A laughter bubbles up her throat. Not a mocking laughter, a nervous one. Here she was, acknowledging this for the first time in years. And to Joshua Graham of all people. All because she wanted him to have a better life. His thumb traces the bite mark on her hand, as a sob escapes her mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You've seen it. You must have. You've seen all of me so many times. And it is right there" her control slips in the worst of moments. She places the hand that wasn't in his hold, over her stomach, not over the scar, but where her son once was. "Getting a c-section in the middle the way to a NCR encampment was one of the scariest things in my life. My mother was taking me, we thought there was time, but I started to bleed, and it was only thanks to passing troup that I'm alive. They had to cut me open to get him out, and it took so long for the scar to heal."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is silence after her words, and slowly, he reaches out for her other hand, and places it over her stomach as well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What happened?" such a vague question. She thinks about screaming, or crying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The Legion happened" the reaction was instant. His hands let go of her, and she fears he will move away from her entirely. Here she was, showing him a side of her that had been only hers for years. He didn't get to look away. "I was away on a NCR mission when the news that the Legion attacked the Twisted Hairs hit me. I came home to a burned down tribe. My mother, dead in our home, and my son, gone." Her hand shots up and grabs one of his, dragging it back to its place over her stomach, this time, it's his hand that is in direct contact with her. "The legion took my son, and I feel the birthing scar every day. You kissed that scar before.", tears start to roll down her eyes again, but she has managed to get back some sort of control. She was calm about this. She had made her peace with it, when she stared down her grave in the Mojave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I killed many mothers. I stole many sons. I don't remember your tribe", what was that supposed to be? What was the proper answer to that?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't expect you to. Josué probably died in that camp with my mother. There is no way they would have allowed him to keep his name and identity in the Legion.", she had made her peace. She buried her mother with her own hands, and mourned a son for more than half of her life. What being angry ever did for her? "</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your tribe. I…"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I never cared about the tribe. I cared about my mother, and my son. The legion killed my mother and my son would have been taken as one of your own. I was already NCR when it happened. I knew what the legion did to tribes." This part is easier to say. It's a rehearsed speech. One she said many times during her time in the NCR. "Fighting the Legion, means putting a bullet in my own son, someday" the last part was something for his ears only. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How did this all start? Scars and burns? She wanted him to live his life with a bit less guilt. But she was sure that backfired. She still wanted him to bury some of the skeletons in his closet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You son might still be alive" his hand was still over her stomach, and it still was cold as ice. But it was there with her </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Maybe"</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Since it's pretty clear who her son is, let's just say that if this was a tv show, it would have cut at the end of the chapter to Ulysses sitting by himself in a camp somewhere.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Also, I felt guilty that the last chapter said basically nothing with what I'm planning, so I sat down and finished this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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